Destination
by endbrought
Summary: How could I have ignored the cry of the Earth Mother? Knowing the end of my strange journey made no difference. I couldn't ignore her. She chose her champions, fragile and strong.


AN: Totally capitalizing on Dandybear's ley line hypothesis. I also have this stupid fascination with self-inserts though I feel like my point of view came across as a pretentious. You can find his fic on Archive of Our Own. It's called "everyone can see it".

Also, this is crappy writing.

* * *

I could feel it the moment I rode over the county border: the almost electrical energy in the air, an ominous pressure bearing down on the coast, and a great looming threat of violence and death. I shivered violently in my car seat. Suddenly, my relaxing dream vacation didn't seem so relaxing anymore. The last few months have been pure hell for me and the brochure and travel agency talked this place up so much that I fell in love with it without even trying. Arcadia Bay. A lovely seaside town surrounded by hills, forests, and cliffs. Idyllic.

So much for that. The earth is nearly screaming. The Northwestern line is hemorrhaging the essence of the Great Mother. Even I, who have been alienated from her for so long, can sense her reaching out for help, to me, to anyone that can help her. A wailing call is coming from the soul of this land and the ocean echoes her cry. How could I ignore that? When I involved myself in the approaching storm how could it have ended in any other way? The powers these children played with was nothing they had a right to, even I knew that there were powers to which we had no right to wield when I began the Way.

The ride through Arcadia Bay was pleasant in a superficially tourist-y kind of way. The town itself was charming- exactly like I expected it to be. It had the expected balance of old and new, there were stereotypical fishermen, the occasional business executive on a cell phone, a paranoid police officer giving my unfamiliar car the stink eye, and, of course, a local diner right on the main street. And then… there was the great black expanse that was that strange combination of depth and breadth that I sense just hiding at the edges. Behind that diner was a great pool of loneliness and despair, that police officer was hiding a side of himself from others- a great fear. The screaming earth was a counter-point to the scattered voices of young men and women reaching out for comfort and being rebuffed. This town, like any other, has its dark secrets but… this was beyond the normal darkness of humanity.

I was thankful to leave the dark eye of the storm when the ride through town ended and the sign for the Cliffside Vacation Cabins guided me to its driveway and Visitor Center. The terrible sense of doom and nature's anger was somewhat dampened here, so close to the forest and the ocean. It also helped that the ley line was only a branch from the main line screaming overhead. Still, this line was nowhere near its usual power I couldn't let that continue.

After an hour of haggling and negotiation, I finally received my cabin key from the front desk and drove out into the forest to find my cabin. The receptionist wasn't happy with the last second change I wanted but even if it cost time and money it was worth it. The cabin I wanted was right underneath one of the intersections of minor lines. For the kind of work I was considering, a single branch line would have been sufficient under normal circumstances but the weak energies present simply would not be enough, not for construction.

I unpacked quickly and began my preparations. I went out to the western-facing porch and cleared a space to work. The setting sun was a fantastically uplifting view and a great motivation to ritually clean my work area. For something so dangerous, I was not going to take any chances: salted water, sweeping, mopping, and my seldom used purifying incense were all used. I never have real need for rituals and so my set-up was rather rusty but passable. I could feel the space become highly neutral and wasted no time inscribing my circle in chalk. I momentarily worried that climbing chalk wasn't the best medium for this but it let it go before my emotions could taint the purity of the space.

I sealed myself in the little triangular space inside the three intertwined circles and placed three white candles I found in the cabin at their edges and one in the triangle I sat inside.

The creepy sensation of weightlessness slowly overtook me as I stared into the center candle's dancing flame. Trances were never my forte, ever since my earliest forays into magic and spiritual discovery they have been uncomfortable. I avoid them.

My surroundings are dark and wet and loud. I looked around the trance world curiously. There was a howling wind tearing at my clothing and a heavy cold rain that chilled me to the bone. Lightening flashed sporadically and lit up the dark in brilliant white light. It looked like I was standing at the base of a hill and, at the crest, was the lighthouse. I revised my guess, it was the cliff that could be seen from town. I smile, this will not do. I raise a hand to begin my work but I am stopped by an u usual occurrence. Where there was nothing, suddenly there is woman in front of me. She is short and thin, almost too thin to be healthy. She is cowering from the wind and shaking.

I step forward and call out, "Miss! Come here! Quickly!"

I wave urgently at her and beckon her over to me. I could work with her in the way but it would be safer for her if she is near me. I can never really predict what might happen when I begin my magics.

She stares at me uncomprehendingly for a moment but rushes over after a particularly bright flash of lightning and a loud crash of thunder starles her out of her stupor. She stumbles on the last step and I quickly reach out and grab her arm to steady her.

"Who are you?! What's going on?!" She is frantically looking around at the area. It seems to be a camping area.

I look at her quizzically and yell back to be heard over the storm, "What are you talking about? You're here aren't you?! You're projecting just like me."

I gently pull her behind me and raise my arms. I yell over my shoulder, "Give me a moment!"

I twist _everything_ and suddenly the air around us is silent. The rain bends around us and the wind is still. Outside our sphere, the massive tornado on the horizon tears and rips at the manifestation of my Will but I stand resolute.

"There. Better. I can fix this easier if I can concentrate." I sigh happily.

"What the fuck..." the woman says breathlessly. I turn to look at her; she is almost hysterical.

"Err." I say, oh so cleverly. "Errrr."

"What the fuck is going on!" She yells angrily. I should have gone with something more comprehensive than an "um" but I'm not really surprised that she's angry.

"Look, I get that projecting and getting thrown into something like this is unsettling but shit happens. Calm down. I'll fix this line up and things should be relatively safer for a while."

I turn to begin working but she grabs my arm and spins me around. For a string bean, she is unexpectedly strong.

"Who are you? What's _going on_"? I dawns on me that she has no idea what is going on. Could this be her first time astral projecting? Is she just Awekening?

"You... don't know where you are, do you? Do you remember where you were?" I jump right in to interrogating her. It's probably not the best move but I'm not the most considerate of people.

She wraps her arms around her torso and shakes her head. She bites her lip and suddenly she's less angry and more afraid and shivering with cold and wet. I sigh. Of course. I am unsure if it would be entirely appropriate but since it's not the physical world, I just don't think about it too hard, when I step forward and give her a hug.

She momentarily stiffens but her shivering forces her to hug back and absorb some heat. She lacks the knowledge to Will it into being.

"Look," I speak calmly and gently, "give me a moment to fix all this. Then I'll explain."

I wait until she nods and I smile at her. I skip the need to focus my magic in some physical gesture and simply bend my Will outward. The sphere of calm expands slowly as I extend my mind into the storm. My Will reins the representation of Nature's fury in and forces it to wait. This projection is merely a reflection of the damage present to the world in the physical plane. Here, where thought and Will are essential to existence, natural forces have no true power. I pause before beginning to slow the tornado. It is abnormally strong and I must truly strain against it with my innate power. Without preparation, I am no more powerful than anyone else. This working will take time.

I open my eyes and look down at the girl. She has her eyes shut but her trembling seems to have stopped. I gently jostle her to get her attention.

"Done. For now anyway." I gesture to draw her attention to the lack of wind and rain. The tornado is gone but the clouds remain. Without more time, I cannot attempt to fix the line yet.

She remains quiet and steps away from me. She looks around and she stops a bench nearby where she sits and wraps her arms around herself again. She looks at me with fear again.

I sigh, "Right... um... okay..."

I try to figure out where to start, "So, this is the spirit world. It's a different plane of existence. You follow?"

I probably should have started somewhere more comforting but, well, that inconsiderate thing again.

Her expression becomes unreadable but she nods slowly, uncertainly. I nod back, "Right. So. You're here because you probably fell asleep somewhere and your soul drifted out for a bit. It's normal. You probably won't even remember this."

I Will a chair into existence and sit down in front of her. Her eyes widen at the sudden existence of my seat, "Who are you? How are you doing this?"

I turn my head curiously. Did she even hear anything I said?

"This is the spirit world, you can do almost anything you can imagine. Mostly." I reply patiently.

"You'll wake up eventually and this will all be just a dream. Don't worry." I repeat, "If you don't want to come back here, you won't."

She just gives me a confused look but I don't bother to continue. The temperature around me starts to plummet and a localized cold spot forms around me. The chair acquires a layer of ice but I remain comfortably warm. Her eyes widen again with nervousness.

When I have gathered enough energy I slowly raise my hand. The static electricity on my skin sparks for a few moments. I hold me breath. I release.

Violet lightning streaks towards the clouds before exploding with force. I grit my teeth and direct it out of the current plane. The energy is excruciating after a few moments of contact with the ley line. No human can touch the physical plane's manifestation of energy without dire consequences. Tears form in my eyes and I whimper as the pain continues to ratchet ever higher. Under normal circumstances, I would have simply died by now. I suppose the Great Mother is too desperate to reject even my help. I close my eyes as the tears start falling in earnest. A minute. Two.

I drop my arm and curl into a ball on the ground. It is done. The patchwork fix I wove around the line is complete. It will grow to the main line with time but it is only, temporary insulation against the original problem.


End file.
